Downriver—Or, The Vessels of Wrath sports a smoky frontispiece of a dozen curious black-and-white photographs: one each of the twelve is subsequently attached to the opening page of the twelve narrative tales that subdivide the book. These photos are of various locales in and around the Congo Riv...
The trick with Iain Sinclair is not to try too hard to take in everything, mentally wander with him and his friends through the landscape and if at times your attention wanders or you get a little tired that's really okay. Sometimes you'll perk up like when he meets Alan Moore, at other times you...
It had been a famous ride from Vancouver, despite the loud and unbroken yatter of a group of matrons heading for a shopping spree in Portland. I kept the pocket camera rolling on smudgy-windowed shots of ripped hillsides, sawdust alps, lumber yards; narrow creeks with fishing boats crossing the f...
Jonathan Bate favours ‘Beech’ (as he prefers ‘Helpston’ to Clare's ‘Helpstone’). William Addison, author of Epping Forest, Its Literary and Historical Associations (1945), opts for ‘High Beach’. Clare is an improvisatory, free-jazz speller. ‘Leopards Hill’, is his improvement on ‘Leppit's Hill Lo...
I had the feeling that I never quite qualified for Hampstead: financially, culturally, sartorially. It’s hard to get the look just right: Alan Bennett/Jonathan Miller corduroy, V-neck pullover and tie, bicycle Oxbridge, London Review of Books kitchen suppers on the lower slopes, the better part o...